• Wired gets an in-depth look at Rockstar Consortium, the group that grew out of the companies that banded together to buy Nortel’s patent portfolio last year. The member companies include Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Sony and Ericsson. According to Wired, Rockstar is a “pure patent exploitation operation funded by all of the winning bidders except EMC.”
• Apple’s iPhone may carry a high cost for carriers — in the form of subsidies paid to Apple — but the return they get in the form of new customers and upgrades is worth it. AllThingsD breaks down a research note from BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman.
• Computerworld connects the dots between Apple CEO Tim Cook’s earlier observations about the market for prepaid phones in developing regions and an analyst note this week that suggests Apple might make the iPhone 3GS available without contract at a lower price in emerging markets.
• Cook tops The Wall Street Journal’s list of the highest-paid CEOs, thanks to his grant of a million stock options last fall and an ascendant Apple stock price.
• Apple and Foxconn sent in third-party auditors to Chinese factories that produce the iPhone and iPad, and promised to jointly improve working conditions. But, as CBS reports, the group behind the “ethical iPhone” protests earlier this year isn’t satisfied and plans to keep acting as watchdog on iPhone production safety and ethics issues.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ioan Sameli

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It’s this last phrase, that something is coming in the next few weeks, that has set off a new round of speculation that perhaps Microsoft intends to reveal Office for iPad on stage at Apple’s iPad 3 event, which is rumored to be taking place in early March. But would Microsoft use an Apple keynote to demo Office for iPad?

Dan Frommer from SplatF comes out heavily in favor of Microsoft being involved in the iPad event, with Apple using Office for iPad to showcase the capabilities of the iPad 3, which would further lock up Apple’s lead against competing tablets in the workplace. John Gruber doesn’t quite agree, mostly because he feels that Apple doesn’t need to share the spotlight.

Frankly, I’d love to see this happen if only to see Steve Ballmer appearing by satellite (or Skype, now that Microsoft owns them?) to announce Office for iPad, much as Bill Gates did in 1997 to announce a new version of Microsoft Office for Mac. [In the video below, skip to 4:47 to see Bill.]

Back then, Apple desperately needed Microsoft to infuse some cash into the organization and some confidence into its customers at a time when it was nearly bankrupt. Nearly 15 years later, the roles are neatly reversed, and Apple is in the driver’s seat for both the phone and tablet markets, while Microsoft is looking to stay relevant with its still-important Office business. In 1997, Apple was eager to cement their relationship with “meaningful partners” like Microsoft, to borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs’ presentation video, embedded above. In 2012, even though Microsoft is nowhere near bankruptcy, that relationship might well look quite different.

If these two things end up being true — that Office for iPad is real and that Microsoft will announce it at the iPad 3 event — here is how to tell exactly where everyone stands:

Where will Office for iPad save its documents?

Would Office for iPad save documents to Apple’s iCloud? Or will it use some Microsoft technology like SkyDrive, Office365 or Sharepoint servers? Or will it be some combination of all of the above?

Office is critically important to Microsoft. It still generates enormous revenues and, more importantly, huge profits for the Redmond, Wash., company. For Office to stay relevant in today’s always-connected workplace, a successful mobile strategy for shared documents is critical. ICloud is great for the independent user that wants to keep their own documents in sync, but it does not provide a complete solution for team collaboration in an enterprise environment. Sharepoint is central to internal collaboration tools in the enterprise market, and SkyDrive and Office365 are part of Microsoft’s hosted collaboration solutions.

If Microsoft were to adopt iCloud for users to save personal documents and Sharepoint integration for team collaboration, that would signal that Microsoft is willing to concede the personal market to get Office on the iPad in order to keep iOS devices plugged into the workgroup and enterprise solutions from Microsoft.

As Gruber put it, “if Microsoft does get a demo slot on stage during the iPad 3 keynote, Microsoft would be getting much more out of it than Apple.”

If Office for iPad only saves documents to iCloud, then Microsoft plainly agrees.

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My Xbox LIVE doesn’t have the console-controlling functions of the Xbox Companion app, but it does offer gamers access to their Xbox LIVE account info, including game achievements, your 3-D avatar and friends management and messaging. In fact, if you don’t have a keyboard accessory for your Xbox controller, it makes chatting with friends, managing your friends list and setting Beacons, which alert you to when your friends want to do the same thing as you, much easier.

It’s actually a very handy little app, and it does a good imitation of Windows Phone 7 for people who haven’t experienced that platform’s interface yet. Sounds are taken straight from the Xbox itself, and despite a little lag when switching between some screens as the info is retrieved from Microsoft’s servers, it’s a pretty fun way to navigate content that’s kind of a chore to view on your console.

The app also includes a “Spotlight” section that presents you with video trailers and featurettes normally available through the console. It’s free, so if you’re an Xbox LIVE user, there’s no reason not to check it out.

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The reason I suspect this news might not excite some is that the iPad currently has a number of very good Office-compatible document editing options from third-party developers. There’s QuickOffice, for instance, and Documents to Go. Both offer Word, PowerPoint and Excel file editing, creation and exporting abilities, and both perform well, coming from developers with a long history of doing document editing on mobile platforms. Then there’s Apple’s own iWork suite for iPad, which is also capable of handling Microsoft files via import.

A Microsoft solution would have the advantage of working natively with Office files in the way the company that created them intended, however. That would mean no minor formatting oddities to occasionally iron out when you shift back to Office, and maybe even tight, wireless integration with Office on the Mac or PC, as well as Office 365 on the web.

The Daily says the cost for official Office iPad apps would be somewhere around the $10 mark Apple currently charges for its iWork titles, which would be a refreshing change from the often high price tags found on its desktop offerings. But for me at least, an official Office app would have to be a lot better than the competition in terms of its mobile interface before I’d be willing to drop the third-party solutions. What about you?

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We went hands-on with the new feature using the Skype for Mac 5.4 Beta to see if it’s as easy to use as the promotional video Skype released detailing it (warning: autoplays) makes it out to be. The answer, it turns out, is yes and no.

Setup you would expect from a beta

To set up the service, you need to tie your Facebook account to your Skype client through a simple authorization process, all of which takes place in the Skype app itself through the Skype Home screen. I had already done this using the last Skype beta for Mac, so I expected to be able to jump right in.

Not so fast. I found that in order to get my Facebook contacts to appear in Skype, I needed to disconnect my Facebook account and reconnect it, then quit and restart the program. After that, I had trouble getting the Skype beta client to recognize who was or wasn’t online. That required another quit and restart of the Skype application. It could be that this only happened because I was already using a previous beta; if you’re signing in with your Facebook credentials for the first time, you may have better luck.

Still, it’s important to keep in mind that this is prerelease software, so bugs are to be expected, and I eventually worked everything out in just a few minutes. Skype will likely iron out these kinks before a final release.

Calls are easy

Once you can see your Facebook contacts, making video calls to them is remarkably easy. Simply go to the Skype Contacts tab in the left-hand menu and navigate to the group of “online” folks. You could also navigate to the “Facebook” group, but video calls can only be made to Facebook users who are listed as online anyway, so it makes more sense to see only who is actually available.

I tried two calls to see how the service worked; the first, to my colleague Kevin C. Tofel, went off without a hitch, although Kevin said that there appeared to be a bit of delay as the Skype and Facebook services did their initial handshaking. Once connected, though, video and audio quality were both great, and there appeared to be no lag or delay on either end.

One caveat for calling that I discovered in my second attempt: If the Facebook contact you are trying to reach has not already installed the plug-in necessary to enable Facebook video chat, they will be prompted to do so. Luckily, it’s a relatively quick, painless process, and once my friend was set up, that call went just as well as the first one.

A good step toward centrally managed video communication

Adding Facebook video calling to Skype extends the service’s reach considerably, and it is another step toward simplifying Internet-based communication by tying people’s most frequently used accounts to one another. It means Skype users should have an easier time raising friends and family for video chat, and depending on how you use Facebook, it could make face-to-face professional communication easier, too.

While there hasn’t yet been any announcement regarding taking Skype’s Facebook integration to mobile devices, that would seem like a logical next step. It would help extend cross-platform potential for centralized video chat even further. According to our recent poll, Skype is a popular option among mobile video chatters, but if this Facebook integration makes its way to smartphones and tablets, too, that popularity could go through the roof.

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For instance, Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson, “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology,” and “He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

Here’s how Gates responded in his Sunday interview on ABC’s This Week:

“Over the course of the 30 years we worked together, you know, he said a lot of very nice things about me and he said a lot of tough things. He faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace. So the fact that we were succeeding with high-volume products, you know, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies, it’s tough. And so the fact that at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable.”

Gates seems to be referring to the Apple that Jobs returned to in 1997, when the company was 90 days from bankruptcy. Jobs eventually ended up making a deal with Microsoft to invest $150 million into the company directly as well as develop Microsoft software for the Mac, which was a  huge boon to the Mac platform. And that’s also probably was Gates was referring to earlier in the interview when he sort of took credit for creating the Mac: “Steve and I worked together creating the Mac, we had more people on it, did the key software for it,” he told Christiane Amanpour.

“We” is obviously Microsoft. And as previously mentioned, they did develop Office, Internet Explorer and other development tools for the Mac. But Jobs and possibly a few others at Apple might take exception at the “worked on creating the Mac” bit.

Even so, Gates reiterates his respect for Jobs despite the blunt quotes about him that Jobs gave to his biographer:

“I respect Steve. We got to work together, we spurred each other on even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.”

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Apple’s rise propelled it to eighth overall on the list, a spot occupied by Nokia last year. Nokia’s brand value suffered, causing it to fall four spots, to No. 14 on the list. Microsoft also fell (down three percent), and it is now ranked third, with an estimated value of $59 billion.

While seven of the top ten are tech companies, Coca-Cola still retains the No. 1 spot overall. Another fast riser in the rankings was Amazon, which saw its brand value climb 32 percent versus last year. It still has a ways to go to catch up to Apple, however, since it currently sits at 26th overall. We’ll see if the new Kindles can light a fire under that growth.

Interbrand’s methodology for the report involves looking at financial performance data, the role of the brand in purchase decisions and the overall strength of the brand (basically, its ability to continue to make lots of money).

Based on these measures, you can see why Apple would excel. The success of the iPad, iPad 2 and iPhone 4 during the past year are undeniable, and Apple’s Mac presence continues to demonstrate strong growth, as the company showed us on Tuesday during its iPhone 4S media event. It’s also worth noting that both Nintendo and Sony fell in the rankings, which could be a sign that Apple’s mobile gaming success (another thing it crowed about on Tuesday) is also helping to fuel its brand strength and erode that of others.

Despite a mixed reception to the iPhone 4S, I think we’ll see it continue to build Apple’s brand in the coming year. The 3GS was met with a somewhat similar reaction, and we all know how that turned out. What do you think? Will Apple ever take the Coca-Cola crown?

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The reason Apple devices and those using Google’s mobile OS will be able to stay dominant is because both have a significant platform advantage: the availability of software and content from development and publishing partners. It’s an advantage that In-Stat thinks will be insurmountable for competitors, and the recent cautionary tale of HP’s TouchPad seem to back that assumption up.

The TouchPad's multitasking was one of its strengths but ultimately couldn't save it.

While many were impressed with webOS, the mobile operating system powering the TouchPad, and not offended by the hardware itself (which did have more in common with the original iPad than the current model, despite competing for consumers’ dollars with the newer Apple device), third-party developer support was severely lacking when compared to the iOS and Android ecosystems.

In-Stat also predicts that the overall tablet market will grow to 250 million shipments by 2017, up from around 17 million in 2010. New devices from Apple, Motorola, LG and HTC will help spur that growth, according to the report, as well as new devices from BlackBerry. It’s that last one I’m not so sure about. RIM’s PlayBook isn’t doing so hot so far, and we’ve heard that carrier support is eroding for the device, at least in the U.S. In-Stat even acknowledges that “wireless operator business models could have a tremendous impact on future tablet demand,” and I agree; subsidies will help non-Apple devices catch up. If RIM is already being locked out in that regard for poor performance, it seems unlikely that new tablet designs from the BlackBerry maker could turn the tide.

The PlayBook is a 7-inch device, a form factor outnumbered among tablets by larger screens.

One final highlight from the In-Stat report: The company predicts 9- to 11-inch devices to rule the roost, with 56 percent of the tablet market. I agree that larger screens will continue to beat out smaller devices, but I question whether it will even be that close of a race. As of yet, 7-inch devices haven’t really proved their viability: Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is the best-selling example, and it still doesn’t seem to have come close to the iPad’s numbers, even if you count shipments instead of sales.

I fully agree with In-Stat that the tablet market will expand by leaps and bounds in the next few years, and I also agree that iOS and Android will lead that expansion. But I’m not sure that Android will make up as much of that expansion as In-Stat suggests. Google is beset on all sides by patent claims that call in to question Android’s future, and it has yet to release a solid version of its mobile OS that really stands up well on tablet hardware. One thing’s for sure: Apple has a seat at the head of the tablet table, and that’s a very good place to be, if recent trends are any indication.

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1. Buying isn’t bonding

If you’re a big company like Google and you want to expand your reach, generally speaking you turn to acquisition to get the requisite skills and intellectual property. Apple does this, too. But improving a sub-feature of your mobile OS is a world apart from taking the two biggest parts of the smartphone equation (hardware and software) and mashing them together.

Apple has been doing both sides of the software/hardware coin for as long as it’s been making devices. The iPhone and iOS were born and grew up together. Apple doesn’t make a move on one without knowing how the other will be affected. Android is fully formed; it ships on devices as a consumer-ready product. Google can’t start from the ground up to create a device and software that are literally made for each other unless it wants to ditch Android entirely and go with something new to replace it.

2. Android will remain “open”

Android, unlike iOS, is designed to be device agnostic. Device-makers can customize it to some extent (by throwing custom software like Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense interface on top of it, for instance), but ultimately, these efforts all have to make compromises, which is why it takes so much more processor power to achieve an experience as smooth as you’d find on iOS. In order to make sure that Android continues to work well on other manufacturers’ hardware, Google will have to make compromises too, something former Engadget editor Nilay Patel hinted at on Twitter upon hearing the news.

Google has to make sure that it keeps Samsung, HTC and others happy, and that means not introducing device-specific features that give its own handsets an edge over the competition. Otherwise, the Android-maker runs the risk of sending its greatest asset (a healthy network of hardware partners) running into the arms of a rival like Microsoft. Having to consider the concerns of outside interests means that Android won’t likely be able to achieve the same level of symbiotic integration Apple’s iPhone/iOS combo enjoys.

3. It hasn’t worked for others

Maybe the biggest reason not to expect Google to be able to mimic Apple’s success with a unified platform is that others who’ve tried to approach the idea in a similar way haven’t be able to either. I’m thinking mainly of Hewlett-Packard, which purchased Palm and webOS to boost its mobile business a little over a year ago. Considering webOS had a tiny two percent U.S. smartphone market share according to Nielsen in a recent count, that’s not working out too well.

It’s also worth noting that the two smartphone companies who have had success with a unified platform approach are actually seeing their stars fall recently. I’m talking about Research In Motion and Nokia, which are both suffering big losses in market share on a global scale. Nokia’s attempts to curtail its losses actually include abandoning the unified approach with the Microsoft deal it announced earlier this year, and RIM is poking around in Android’s backyard to make up for its own deficiencies. Android, on the other hand, has seen exponential growth based on a strategy that, to date, hasn’t at all involved making its own hardware.

Money can’t buy platform happiness

Building a unified mobile platform that benefits from a tight reciprocal relationship between hardware and software isn’t something Google can buy. It’s still possible that it can make this work with time, since it has done fairly impressive things with even just with close hardware/software partnerships like the HTC Nexus One and the Samsung Nexus S, but matching Apple’s model isn’t a realistic near-term goal. I don’t think that’s necessarily Google’s end-game with this play anyway, since Motorola’s patent library seems a much more practical incentive. But if you’re expecting a Googlephone that somehow delivers a “perfect” Android experience, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

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Android and iOS combined represented a total of just under 62 percent of all worldwide smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2011, doubling the combined market share percentage of the Google and Apple smartphone platforms during the same period last year. Android and iOS were the only two major platforms that saw significant growth year over year, too. Nokia’s Symbian plummeted from 40.9 to 22.1 percent of global smartphone sales, while Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform also stumbled from 18.7 to 11.7 percent. Microsoft didn’t fare well, either, falling from 4.9 to just 1.6 percent.

But taking a closer look at the combined Android and iOS 62 percent market share reveals that Google’s mobile OS, not Apple’s, is doing most of the heavy lifting. Android was the biggest gainer overall by a significant margin, growing from 17.2 to 43.4 percent of smartphone sales, while iOS showed more modest growth, going from 14.1 to 18.2 percent.

Still, Apple did more than double its total number of units shipped, from 8.7 million iPhones sold in the second quarter of 2010 to 19.6 million during the same time frame in 2011, even without a new hardware release. Apple also managed to climb to fourth overall in global mobile-device sales during the quarter, compared with a sixth-place ranking last year. Samsung, arguably Apple’s biggest competition in terms of hardware manufacturers, actually lost ground, falling 1.5 percentage points in worldwide handset sales year over year.

According to former Nokia executive and industry watcher Tomi Ahonen, who weighed in on the Gartner numbers on Thursday by combining them with sales data reported by major mobile manufacturers and other research firms like IDC, Apple is also on top of the heap when it comes to smartphone manufacturers, with 19 percent of market share for the second quarter of 2011. Ahonen also ranks iOS second in terms of overall operating system share, with 19 percent, edging out Nokia’s 16 percent. But even by Ahonen’s cumulative estimates, Android still has a dominant lead, with 41 percent of mobile OS share.

It’s easy to see this data point as yet another example of Android’s growing triumph over Apple in the smartphone battle, but that’s much too simplistic a view. Apple is still showing significant growth in worldwide smartphone sales, and it accounts for an increasing part of the device manufacturer picture. Android’s scattershot approach definitely has won it a presence in more markets at prices more affordable to a range of buyers, but Apple is still dominating the revenue picture. Also, some are beginning to think that Android might be poised to suffer a painful, drawn-out death by a thousand cuts from patent licensing issues, and Google’s recent decision to speak out against patent law seems to back that up.

Android may be doing most of the work when it comes to buoying the good ship smartphone, but Apple still seems to be plotting the course. As long as the growth of iOS stays positive and Apple keeps selling more and more hardware, the iPhone has nothing to fear from Android’s successes, in the same way the Mac line has nothing to fear from the PC industry it continues to be dwarfed by but also outpace.

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